Sir, Gordon Brown made the disastrous decision to move responsibility for bank regulation from the Bank of England to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and then compounded it by failing to appoint any qualified bankers to the the FSA board. He opted for lawyers, accountants and “casino” bankers who failed to appreciate that bad lending and investment decisions cause banks to go broke.

George Osborne still has not acted to populate the boards of the FSA and UK Financial Investments with qualified bankers. While this situation exists there is real risk of further bank failures. The Treasury needs to realise that the casino bankers, which it always turns to in times of trouble, are not qualified to regulate or manage the UK’s banks.